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iothemoon 's review for:
The Paper Menagerie
by Ken Liu
The main character is a Chinese-American boy who grows up experiencing bigoted remarks about his heritage, and deals with the pain by putting distance between himself and his Chinese-born mother. Meanwhile, his mother possesses a magical ability to fold paper into little animals that come to life. The boy goes from loving them to shutting them away in a box until the spark of life is extinguished in them.
It's a story of internalized racism. But also, it is about the pain we experience when we realize how much we've hurt our parents by not returning their love. And somehow, all too often we realize this too late. Personally, I have a vivid experience of this.
I read this story on my quest for a piece of short fiction that I find gripping. Only one short story has ever captured my attention well enough for me to read it in one sitting, without wanting to stop and do something else. That was in 2018. I figure it's about time I find another short story that's interesting. There's got to be one somewhere in the world, right?
Enter the list of Nebula awards for Best Short Fiction. The Paper Menagerie was the 2011 award winner (and got a few other well known prizes). That sounded promising. Plus, there's a podcast where Levar Burton reads it, and how could I turn down something like that?
Despite its accolades, which are surely well deserved, The Paper Menagerie didn't do the trick for me. Even though some of the protagonist's experiences mirror my own, I felt a lack emotional reflection that made the story feel like it was being made up by someone who hadn't actually experienced this - which I doubt is the case.
The choices made by Liu put me outside the story's reach. The dialogue didn't sound real to me, more hyperbolic, like it was written to fit the public's idea of what people say in the situations described here. The scenes chosen to tell the story felt artificially put together to construct a piece that would be most likely to tug on the readers' emotions.
Many reviewers say that this story's impact made them cry. Personally, I also cry when I fail to find something interesting and then read it anyway. Crying from reading The Paper Menagerie, however, was not in stars for me, for better or worse.
It's a story of internalized racism. But also, it is about the pain we experience when we realize how much we've hurt our parents by not returning their love. And somehow, all too often we realize this too late. Personally, I have a vivid experience of this.
I read this story on my quest for a piece of short fiction that I find gripping. Only one short story has ever captured my attention well enough for me to read it in one sitting, without wanting to stop and do something else. That was in 2018. I figure it's about time I find another short story that's interesting. There's got to be one somewhere in the world, right?
Enter the list of Nebula awards for Best Short Fiction. The Paper Menagerie was the 2011 award winner (and got a few other well known prizes). That sounded promising. Plus, there's a podcast where Levar Burton reads it, and how could I turn down something like that?
Despite its accolades, which are surely well deserved, The Paper Menagerie didn't do the trick for me. Even though some of the protagonist's experiences mirror my own, I felt a lack emotional reflection that made the story feel like it was being made up by someone who hadn't actually experienced this - which I doubt is the case.
The choices made by Liu put me outside the story's reach. The dialogue didn't sound real to me, more hyperbolic, like it was written to fit the public's idea of what people say in the situations described here. The scenes chosen to tell the story felt artificially put together to construct a piece that would be most likely to tug on the readers' emotions.
Many reviewers say that this story's impact made them cry. Personally, I also cry when I fail to find something interesting and then read it anyway. Crying from reading The Paper Menagerie, however, was not in stars for me, for better or worse.